Young Writers Society

The MC of The Darkness Within is fifteen-year old Jess Parker, a troubled girl who runs away from home after life deals her some bad cards. She starts a search for where she belongs, during which she learns to jump the hurdles fate tosses in her path.

After she befriends a group of teenagers, their situation takes a turn for the worst, and people begin to get hurt, and even killed, as they find themselves in the sights of the Hell Hounds. Organized crime, hit-lists, beatings and near-death escapes are the result, and there's no guarantee that she, her younger sister and brother, and her friends will make it through unscathed.

The Hell Hounds want her, and will effortlessly step over dead bodies to achieve their twisted goal.

So, sounds interesting?

Xxx Do

Haha; I was going to tell you to put it here instead when I thought about critiquing it.

I'll get to it, but bug me if I forget, 'kay?

~JFW1415

Hey Yea I decided it would be better off being here, in the normal forums long stories seem to put people off
It is a lot to critique so I'll bug you in a while
Thanks again !
XxxDo

Lol, I started reading it, but it is 11 O'clock at night, so I'm tired! I'm printing it out, so that I could read it while I'm in bed. But it is super long! After reading what I have, I really do think you should look into publishing.

Chapter One

(This is only for chapter one. I'll do more later.)

Before I Read

- Please space this out! You didn’t double-space everything, and I just spent ages fixing this. (Haha, I’m just picky. I’ll love you if you space them out from now on, though. ;P)
- Page breaks are your friend! They work better than spaces between paragraphs – I also added these.
- Please don’t kill me if I don’t finish this, or if I take forever. ;P It’s loooong!
- Hopefully this is good – I feel like ripping things to shreds. ;P
- My point count looks rather low… *Nudge nudge, wink wink* haha

After I Read

Eh, not my favorite from you, but certainly not bad. You just got a little info-dumpy at times. Actually, I jotted them down as I read. These areas got boring:

- When we learn her name
- When we learn what she did
- When we learn about the city names
- When Jason talks about his friends and homes

Also, your sentences got long in a lot of places. Separate some of them – at least look at all with four or more commas.

Hm…that’s kind of it. Not too much to critique here. I was just bored. There was nothing to hook my interest. Maybe start later? (*Gasp* I’ve never told you that before! It’s always the opposite!) Like, have Jason call out “Hey, you all right?” Then let us see where she is, and then continue? I don’t know – just hook us!

Sorry about the wait and the lack of depth. Like I said, your main problem was info-dumping and boring-ness. You get rid of that stuff and you’re golden.

PM me for anything, especially to bug me about getting chapter two critiqued.

~JFW1415

Chapter Two

After I Read

My main problem is that you rambled so much. Any sentence over 15 words, see if you can reword. Any sentence with four or more commas, so reword. (Of course, you can throw a long one in every once in a while, but not for the whole time.)

Also, atmosphere! I have no idea where they are. (But I rambled on this during my nit-pick, so I’ll shut up.)

Finally, I’m not sure if I liked that last sentence. Maybe ditch it? Keep us guessing for a while? Let us feel her pain, but not know why. Then, when she builds the courage to tell Jason, let us feel the shock. I think that will be much stronger.

Sorry for the wait! I’ll get to chapter three eventually.

PM me for anything at all.

~JFW1415

Chapter Three

After I Read

All I can really do is echo myself – set the atmosphere. Let me have some idea where they are, especially in the woods, and it will work much better. Use all the senses. Does it smell like wet dog? Does she hear birds chirping? Is the air humid?

Also, flesh out the characters a bit more. Right now, we have Ally, Jess, and Jason fleshed out pretty well. What about the others? Give us a first impression of them. How do they act? Do the guys hit on her? Is the other girl snobby? What? You are allowed to stick to stereo-types at this point, because it’s a first impression. When you first meet someone, you think ‘goth,’ ‘prep,’ ‘loser,’ etc, right? Same thing here. Let us see that, and then let them develop.

The story is going along pretty well though. Work on your atmosphere and be careful not to bore us with useless actions and you’ll be set. (We don’t need to know every single smile – let the other actions and dialogue speak for us.)

PM me for anything, and expect the next critique soon. Chapter four’s shorter, so it won’t take me as long.

~JFW1415

Chapter Four

After I Read

Again, all I can do is echo myself. I want more of the atmosphere built. I want the boring, every day things ditched. I want Christy to actually be used.

Also, look at your grammar mistakes and learn the rules. Every piece I correct for you has a thousand, and you should learn them by now.

This story’s looking pretty good so far, as long as you work on ATMOSPHERE!

PM me when you get the next bit up, ‘kay?

And PM me for anything else you need – questions, more to critique, boredom, critiques of revised versions, etc.

Good luck, and happy editing!

(Sorry I took so long!)

~JFW1415

Thank you JF !!!

I'm gonna work on it right away I was bored, so you've basically saved me from sitting in my room all day being bored out of my mind XD

*Donates points*



XxxDo

I knew somewhere on this website there had to be some SERIOUS writing! I really thought that there were only the small little posts that barely contained any GOOD writing. Here's where the good stuff is!

Sorry, I haven't gotten around to critiquing it yet, but I will. I think, for starters, it would be much easier to read if it were in Times New Roman or other simple text, font size 12, along with double spacing!!! When I read it I'll give you the full critique!

Very well written. It's a little slow in the beginning, with Jess just standing

there in the rain, waiting to die from hypothermia and thinking about her

family. There were a few problems, that I think mostly came from the

download, such as the fact that none of the writing was properly

spaced or indented. This made it very hard to read. This is a fragment:



"I wavered, he seemed nice, though I was in a bit of a pickle, not ready

to blindly trust him nor having any reason to decide he wasn’t trustworthy."


I HAVE to compliment the cliff-hangar at the end of Chapter 2!!!!:


"What he didn’t know, though, was that my sister Lesley would've been

four had she not been murdered."


"I closed my eyes, trying to convince myself that I hadn’t seen the

horror on his face and the pity in his eyes as I told him two members of my

family had died."


This is also really HORRIFYING! Scaryscaryscary!

“Two days after we had it taken, Lesley, dad and I went for a walk, in

the park across the street from our home. It was the summer holiday,

August, nice weather, so we did that, my family, go for walks. The others

stayed home, Katy and Jake too busy entertaining themselves with water

balloons in the back yard, mom supervising.” I swallowed heavily, my eyes

still tightly shut. I was adding background details to put off the moment of

telling him what happened, to stall having to share the painful memory for

the fifth time in my life."

Some of this should be reworded. I think it could be even MORE

horrifying and fascinating if better words were used.
"

Thank you for your comments!! I'm considering posting the next few chapters, but I think I might wait until anyone shows an interest in reviewing those too. Anyone? I'll, of course, review work in return/donate points, whichever you prefer. It is a lot, I understand that, so I'll gladly do something in return to compensate your effort!

XxxDo

I'll review your chapters if you review mine....heh. A lousy way of getting attention, trying to make a deal like that....

I'll read them. Just post 'em up when you get the chance.

"I'll review yours if you review mine?" That's not what I'm doing here! I've reviewed eight (or more) pieces of work from various authors, in-depth, in the past two days without asking something in return. I went to the chatroom and asked if anyone wanted a review! Seriously, I don't appreciate it much when you call what I do a "lousy way of getting attention" when you don't even know me! I'm not looking for attention, that's not the way I am.

The story I'm talking about is long, and when I say long, I mean that it is tonnes of work to review the whole thing. The problem is, it is difficult for people to review something they haven't seen before, so they would have to start at chapter one. Hence I won't put up a story if there is no point in putting it up... People from outside this website can access the stories, and I've had someone copy work of mine before, so I won't risk putting up a story of that size unless there is a reason, such as a pending review. As I said, I will compensate for their effort, but that doesn't mean I won't review work unless they do something for me!

Okay. I'm done with my rant. Sorry bout that but that comment got to me.

XxxDo

XxxDo wrote:"I'll review yours if you review mine?" That's not what I'm doing here! I've reviewed eight (or more) pieces of work from various authors, in-depth, in the past two days without asking something in return. I went to the chatroom and asked if anyone wanted a review! Seriously, I don't appreciate it much when you call what I do a "lousy way of getting attention" when you don't even know me! I'm not looking for attention, that's not the way I am.

The story I'm talking about is long, and when I say long, I mean that it is tonnes of work to review the whole thing. The problem is, it is difficult for people to review something they haven't seen before, so they would have to start at chapter one. Hence I won't put up a story if there is no point in putting it up... People from outside this website can access the stories, and I've had someone copy work of mine before, so I won't risk putting up a story of that size unless there is a reason, such as a pending review. As I said, I will compensate for their effort, but that doesn't mean I won't review work unless they do something for me!

Okay. I'm done with my rant. Sorry bout that but that comment got to me.

XxxDo

actually, that comment was directed towards myself, not you...so you don't need to get angry. It was just a joke.

but I suppose people have gotten tired of me on this site, so i'm thinking my time here on YWS is slowly coming to a close...I didn't ask for you to blow up on me. I'm going to review your book/story regardless of whether you read mine or not. Relax.

I'm not some prick who's been constantly selfish and wanting all the attention on me...I've never asked anyone to read my stuff, let alone critique it. So don't go thinking that just because maybe you get on here more than I do, and read more and critique more than me that you're better than me or think I don't know what it means to . I don't appreciate your comments either, kid. I don't go looking for attention. That's not what I wanted in saying that.
with that said, post it on up, I'll read it whenever I get the chance.